


Torrent

by xraelynn



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Episode: s01e01 Pilot, POV Second Person, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-23
Updated: 2018-02-23
Packaged: 2019-03-22 18:28:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13769976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xraelynn/pseuds/xraelynn
Summary: A second look at a first impression (Pilot, Act I, Scene II).





	Torrent

**Author's Note:**

> "You are the man  
> You are my other country  
> And I find it hard going
> 
> You are the prickly pear  
> You are the sudden violent storm
> 
> the torrent to raise the river  
> to float the wounded doe"  
> -"Wilderness," by Lorine Niedecker

You will choose to stay.

You can't know it yet. All the violence that will follow, the small towns, the late nights, the victims seeking justice; you can't know that you will choose him again and again, that you will trade your own logic for his passion. You can only know what is presented to you: this assignment, this office, this man.

This man will save your life. This man will break your heart. This meeting is the last time he will ever be a stranger. In this moment he is unexceptional, a colleague; that pinstriped shirt, that unruly hair. Glasses intellectualize his face, but Agent Mulder plainly needs no intellectualizing. What he needs is validation, confrontation without compromise, powerful honesty and care. What he needs is you.

He will come to you in the dark, his words like wounds that need dressing. He will confess to you in motel rooms, demand your trust, rattle your faith like the bars of a cage. He will become cherished to you. He will become familiar.

His work will become your life.

You will defend him to supervisors and review committees, relatives and disgruntled physicians. You will dispute him and console him. You will fight to keep him alive, sane, untethered from the bonds of tragedy. His life will become your work.

You will curse this day. You will thank God for it.

All that will come later. All that will come.

**Author's Note:**

> This story was originally written in 2007 and published wherever we were publishing fanfic back then.


End file.
